1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to electrode active materials, electrodes including the electrode active materials, lithium batteries including the electrodes, and methods of preparing the electrode active materials.
2. Description of the Related Art
A representative example of a negative active material that is used in an electrochemical cell including a battery, such as a lithium battery, is a carbonaceous material such as graphite. Graphite has excellent capacity maintenance characteristics and potential characteristics, and when alloyed with lithium, the graphite volume does not change. Accordingly, a battery that is manufactured using graphite has high stability. However, graphite has a limitation as a high-capacity battery material, which limitation is recently being reached.
Also, as the negative active material, a metal that is alloyable with lithium can be used. Examples of a metal that are alloyable with lithium are silicon (Si), tin (Sn), aluminum (Al) etc. Such metals have relatively large electric capacity. However, during charge and discharge, the metals expand in volume and thus some active materials in an electrode may be shorted and the short may result in a substantial decrease in maintenance of capacity in a battery.
Accordingly, the need is gradually increasing for development of a negative active material and battery with improved performance embodying both high capacity and long-lifetime battery.